On-Ice Communication

Overview

Every other document here tells you to communicate. This one tells you what to actually say. It is a list of the words hockey players shout at each other, who says each one, when, and — the part that gets skipped — what you are supposed to do when you hear it.

The vocabulary below is the most widely understood version of hockey's shared language. It is not the only version, and the specific words matter far less than your team agreeing on them. A team that says "wheel" and a team that says "go" are equally well organised. A team where three players say "wheel", one says "go", and one says nothing is not.

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A note on variation — read this before you learn the list

There is no official hockey vocabulary. Calls vary by team, by region, by level and by coach. Two things follow from that.

First, agree your list as a team. A call only works if the receiver decodes it in under half a second. If they have to translate, the call has failed — they would have been better off with silence, because at least silence doesn't cost them a beat. Coaches who set their calls at the start of the season and drill them in practice get calls that work in March; coaches who leave it to chance get five private languages.

Second, expect regional differences. The vocabulary here is the North American one, which dominates coaching material in English and is what you will meet in the NHL, in most of Canada and the United States, and in English-speaking rec hockey worldwide. European leagues run the same concepts in their own languages, and coaching terminology genuinely differs — Sweden forward Gustav Nyquist, describing switching back to a Swedish national-team staff, said "it's different words you use, kind of ... different terminology, I guess, for the same thing."

But be careful which way that cuts, because the evidence points the other way for on-ice calls. Asked at the 2025 4 Nations Face-Off whether his players would use Swedish on the ice to hide instructions from opponents, Sweden coach Sam Hallam said they would do the opposite: "They're going to scream and yell to each other in English. 'Over! Over!' 'Here! Here!' 'Open! Open!' 'Stretch!' Whatever. Just because that's what they're doing in games over here." So at the top level the shouted vocabulary appears to be English regardless of nationality. There is no published call-by-call comparison of North American and European club hockey vocabulary, so treat this as an open question rather than a rule: if you move between hockey cultures, do not assume your calls travel. Ask.

Calls marked with a dagger (†) below are ones no published coaching source documents as spoken calls, though they are in common use. Some of them — outlet, net front, sag, collapse, odd man — are perfectly well documented as terms; it is only their use as something you shout that is unverified. Treat all daggered entries as widely-used-but-unverified, and check them against your own team's vocabulary rather than assuming.

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Why verbal communication wins games

The mechanism is simple and it is worth understanding, because it tells you when to talk.

The puck carrier is the least informed player on the ice. Their eyes are down or forward, their body is between them and half the rink, and the most dangerous thing in their world — the forechecker closing from behind — is in the one place they cannot look. Everyone else can see it.

A call converts a blind decision into an informed one. A defenceman retrieving a puck in the corner has to choose between three plays. Without information they guess, and a guess in the defensive zone is how goals get scored. With one word from the goalie — "time" or "man on" — they are not guessing any more. The information cost you nothing. It was already sitting in someone else's eyes, useless.

Half a second is the whole game. A call given before the puck arrives lets the receiver plan; the same call given as the puck arrives just startles them. See Scanning and Anticipation for the habit that lets you make calls early.

The loudest team usually looks like the more skilled team. This is worth sitting with. A talking team makes fewer blind turnovers, arrives at pucks with a decision already made, and rotates in the defensive zone without anyone standing still to work out whose job it is. From the stands that reads as skill, speed and "chemistry". Most of it is information. It is the single cheapest improvement available to a team — it requires no fitness, no skill development and no ice time.

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The core call list

Each entry gives the word, who says it, what it means, and what you do when you hear it.

Pressure warnings

These are the highest-value calls in hockey and the ones most often missed. All of them are said by whoever can see the pressure, which is almost never the puck carrier.

• "Man on" — Said by anyone with a view of the puck carrier's blind side. An opponent is closing and the carrier cannot see them. If you hear it: stop trying to make a play. Protect the puck with your body, put the net or your own body between you and the pressure, and get rid of it — a rim, a chip off the glass, or a short pass to the nearest teammate. Do not put your head down.

• "One on" / "Two on" — Said by anyone, most often the goalie or a backchecker. The same warning with a count: one forechecker coming, or two. If you hear it: the number changes your play. One forechecker can be beaten with a reverse or a quick turn; two means you are being sealed and the puck needs to leave — rim it or glass it out.

• "Heads up" — Said by anyone. Generic warning: something is coming that you have not seen. Less precise than "man on" but faster to shout when you have no time to be specific. If you hear it: get your head up and your body braced. Assume contact.

  A related shout, "heads", is a pure safety call — a puck or stick is flying through the air toward someone. Get out of its path: turn away and cover up. Never use "heads" to mean anything tactical. Note the one place this does not apply, because it is the opposite of the rule that matters most: it is never an instruction to duck into contact near the boards. "Heads Up, Don't Duck" governs everything involving the wall — head up, chin off your chest, skates parallel, forearm and hip. Ducking a flying puck in open ice is sensible; ducking a checker at the wall is how spinal injuries happen. See Body Contact and Battles and Skating.

• "Behind you" — Said by anyone. Either an opponent or the puck is behind you. Ambiguous, which is its weakness — some teams reserve it for the puck and use "man on" for opponents. If you hear it: check over your shoulder immediately. If your team hasn't split the meaning, be prepared for either.

• "Feet" / "Under" — Said by anyone. The puck is in your skates or directly under you and you have lost sight of it. If you hear it: look down, kick it to your stick, and reset. This one is a genuine gift; a puck in your feet is invisible to you and obvious to everyone else.

• "Time" / "You've got time" / "No one on you" — Said by anyone with a view, most often the goalie. Nobody is close. This is the mirror image of "man on" and it is just as valuable, because a player who fears pressure that isn't there panics and throws the puck away. If you hear it: slow down. Lift your head, take an extra stride, make the good play instead of the safe one.

• "Wheel" — Said by a defence partner, a forward, or the goalie. Skate the puck yourself, usually around behind your own net and up the far side. It is one of the standard breakout options — see Breakouts. If you hear it: take off. The call means the person who said it can see that the route is clear, so commit rather than hesitating. Turn to the open ice, not into the boards.

  Some teams use "turn" † for the same instruction, or simply use "time" and let the retriever decide. "Wheel" is the documented one and the one to standardise on; keep "turn" only if your team already uses it and everybody agrees what it means.

Puck direction

These tell the carrier where to put the puck. Because they arrive as instructions, they carry an obligation: only make them when you can genuinely see the option, and be prepared to be the target.

• "Over" — Said by the weak-side defenceman, or the goalie. Move the puck to the other side, typically behind the net. On a breakout it is the call that switches the play away from the forecheck's pressure. If you hear it: send it across behind your own goal line, not through the slot. Never make a D-to-D pass through the front of your own net — an interception there is a point-blank chance.

• "Up" — Said by the strong-side defenceman or the winger on the wall. Move the puck up the same side it is already on — usually to the winger on the boards. If you hear it: hit the wall option and go with it.

• "Reverse" — Said by a teammate arriving behind the carrier, often the defence partner or the goalie. Send the puck back the way it came, against the flow of the forecheck. If you hear it: the forechecker has over-committed and skated past you; the puck goes into the space they just vacated.

• "Rim" — Said by anyone. Fire the puck hard along the boards so it follows the curve of the rink around to a teammate further along. If you hear it: keep it hard and keep it high on the glass so it doesn't die in the corner. A soft rim is a turnover with extra steps.

  Rim and reverse are not the same play and the distinction is worth being precise about: a rim goes onward around the boards in the direction of the flow; a reverse goes back against it. A rim beats a forechecker sealing you in; a reverse beats one who has over-run you.

• "D-to-D" — Said by a defenceman or the goalie. Pass across to your defence partner. Functionally a more explicit "over". If you hear it: go behind the net, below the goal line. Same rule as "over".

• "Chip" — Said by a supporting forward. Put a short pass past the defender into space for them to skate onto — an area pass rather than a pass to a stick. If you hear it: don't try to hit their blade. Put it where they are going.

• "Off the glass" / "Glass" — Said by anyone, usually in the defensive zone under pressure. Clear the puck high off the boards and out. If you hear it: aim high and wide, but keep it inside the rink. A glass-out rarely gets called for icing, because it usually dies in the neutral zone rather than crossing the far goal line. What it can cost you is two minutes: under NHL Rule 63.2(iii) a minor for delay of game is assessed "on any player who shoots or bats (using his hand or his stick) the puck directly (non-deflected) out of the playing surface from his defending zone, except where there is no glass." The test is where the puck was when you hit it, not where it left. There is no "I was under pressure" exception, but there are three carve-outs: the "except where there is no glass" clause above, and the NOTE to the rule, which says "when the puck is shot into the players' bench, the penalty will not apply" and "when the puck goes out of the playing area directly off a face-off, no penalty shall be assessed." Over the glass behind the bench is still a penalty. So the honest version of this call is: you concede possession, and if you miss the glass you concede a power play.

• "Ice it" — Said by anyone. The puck has to go all the way out even at the cost of a whistle. If you hear it: get it out. But know what you're buying: after your own icing, play stops, the faceoff is in your defensive zone and — under NHL and IIHF rules — your line cannot change and your team cannot take a timeout. IIHF Rules 81.4 and 87.1 impose both restrictions in the NHL's own words, which is what matters if you play British league hockey. USA Hockey blocks neither (Rule 624 restricts no substitution; Rule 204 permits a change at any stoppage; Rule 636(f) puts no icing condition on time-outs). The exception is when you are shorthanded — a penalty-killing team may ice the puck with no whistle at all, which is why "ice it" is a completely normal call on the kill and an expensive one at even strength. It is not unconditional: under Rule 81.6, a team shorthanded "by reason of a major penalty" that has "neglected to ensure there is a player on the penalty bench to exit upon the expiry of the penalty" keeps playing a man short but "are not permitted to ice the puck. Icing will be called." And it is not in every book. USA Hockey grants the shorthanded nullification only "(For all Youth 15-Only and above, Girls 16U and above, High School and Adult classifications only)" (Rule 624(b)(1)) — so below those levels shouting "ice it" on the kill buys your tired killers a defensive-zone draw rather than a rest. Find out which rule set you play under before the call becomes a habit. Special Teams owns the rule.

• "Deep" / "Dump" — Said by a supporting forward. The entry isn't there; put the puck into the offensive zone, usually to a corner below the goal line, and chase. If you hear it: dump and go. Under NHL and IIHF rules the opposing goalie may only play the puck behind their goal line inside the trapezoid (markings, NHL Rule 1.8; the two-minute delay-of-game minor, Rules 27.8 and 63.2(viii)), so a puck dumped wide has to be retrieved by a defenceman with your forecheck arriving on them.

• "Eat it" †— Said by a teammate who can see there is no good option. Hold the puck, absorb the hit, and keep possession rather than forcing a pass that gets picked off. Two cautions, and a flag on both. The action described here is commonly taught as "eating the puck" — holding it against the boards when there are no options under pressure — so that is the phrase to teach. And the short call "eat it" carries a different meaning in some rooms: there are only a few seconds left in the period or the game, so keep the puck where it is. ⚠️ Neither of those two glosses traces to a named source. Neither phrase appears in any of the call-vocabulary sources listed at the foot of this document, with one gap: coachchic.com returns a hard 403, so it cannot be ruled out. Treat both readings as unverified coaching usage — which is exactly why the advice that follows still stands. Same two words, two instructions. Agree which one your bench means, or use "eat the puck" for the board-battle version and something else for the clock version.

Support and availability

These tell the carrier that you exist and where you are. The carrier's head is often down; without a voice, you are not an option.

• "Here" — Said by any open teammate. The simplest call in hockey and the one most under-used. If you hear it: look to the voice. Even if you don't pass, you now know there is an outlet on that side.

• "Middle" — Said by a support player in the middle of the ice. I am open through the centre. If you hear it: the middle is the highest-value place to move the puck in the offensive and neutral zones — and the most dangerous in your own end. Judge by zone: in your defensive zone, a middle pass has to be certain.

• "Back" — Said by a trailing support player. I am behind you and available for a drop pass or as the trailer. If you hear it: you can leave the puck rather than carrying it into trouble.

• "With you" †— Said by a teammate skating alongside. I am on your hip, keep the puck alive. If you hear it: you have a two-man attack, not a one-man one. Slow down half a step and use them.

• "I'm high" †— Said by a forward or a defenceman above the puck. I am the option closer to the blue line. If you hear it: this is usually your safe reset when the low options are covered.

• "Far side" — Said by a support player on the opposite side of the rink. Your help is across the ice, not near you. If you hear it: the cross-ice option exists, but weigh it — a cross-ice pass in your own zone is the highest-risk pass in hockey.

• "Outlet" †— Said by the first breakout option, usually a winger on the wall or a centre swinging low. I am your exit. If you hear it: move the puck and start the breakout.

• "Stretch" — Said by a forward who has beaten the opposition up the ice. I am long, behind their forwards; put it up to me. (Documented as a spoken call: Sweden coach Sam Hallam lists "Stretch!" among the words his players shout on the ice, alongside "Over!", "Here!" and "Open!") If you hear it: the stretch pass is available. Check the blue line first — a stretch pass to a teammate who has already crossed with both skates is offside. One skate on or behind the line keeps them onside, and a skate in the air over the neutral zone counts as onside too under NHL and IIHF rules — not under USA Hockey, where Rule 630(a) requires skate contact.

• "Point" — Said by anyone who can see the defenceman is open. The player at the blue line has space for a shot. If you hear it: get the puck up to the point, then get to the net front for the tip or rebound.

• "All alone" — Said by a teammate behind the play. You are entering the offensive zone with no support. The published call list this document draws on defines it as letting the carrier "know that they do not have any support and are out-numbered" — so on that definition it carries both halves, the absent teammate and the numbers. Some teams use it for the support half only. Agree which yours means, because the two produce different decisions: no support says wait, outnumbered says do not enter at all. If you hear it: don't attack the defence alone. Slow it down, protect the puck, or chip it in and wait for help to arrive.

Danger and coverage

These are defensive-zone calls. They are the ones teams stop making when they get tired, and the ones whose absence shows up directly on the scoresheet.

• "Back door" — Said by anyone, most often the goalie or the weak-side player. There is an unmarked opponent at the far post. If you hear it: the nearest player takes them, immediately. This is the highest-danger unmarked position in hockey and the call exists because the person who can see it is almost never the person who can cover it.

• "Net front" †— Said by anyone. Nobody is on the player standing in the goalmouth. If you hear it: cover them, box them out, get your stick on their stick. Under the house-default low zone collapse this belongs to the weak-side defenceman, but the call exists precisely for when it hasn't happened.

• "Switch" — Said by either of two players who need to trade assignments. Most commonly used between defence partners and between a defenceman and a backchecking forward when two opponents cross. If you hear it: take the nearer opponent and let your teammate take the other. The call has to come from the player who initiates it and it has to be answered — a switch called and not acknowledged is worse than no switch at all.

• "My man" / "I've got him" / "I've got two" †— Said by the player taking an assignment. I am covering this opponent, you take someone else. If you hear it: stop tracking that player and find the unmarked one. Using the opponent's jersey number ("I've got seventeen") removes all ambiguity and is worth the extra syllable.

• "Sag" / "Collapse" †— Said by a defenceman, the centre or the goalie. Tighten in toward the net; give up the outside and protect the slot. If you hear it: the shape shrinks. Note that this is system language — it belongs to a low zone collapse (zone) coverage, the default assumed throughout. Under man-on-man the call makes no sense, because you go where your man goes; under a hybrid, it applies only above the dots. Find out which one your team plays. See Defensive Zone Coverage.

• "Clear" — Said by anyone. The puck is loose in the high-danger area and the nearest player has to move it out now. If you hear it: don't stickhandle. Nearest player, get it out.

• "Screen" — Almost always said by the goalie, because they are the one who knows — but the general principle applies here too, and a defenceman who can see their own goalie has no sightline should say so. I cannot see the puck. If you hear it: either move yourself out of the sightline, or get body position on the opponent who is in it — box them out with your hips and back the way you would box out for a rebound, tie up or lift their stick, and walk them out of the lane. Do not cross-check them out of it. A shove with both hands on the shaft is a cross-check and a minor under NHL Rule 59.2 — and it is the net-front infraction officials are told to look for, since USA Hockey's Standard of Play names the net-front cross-check as its leading example. That is an enforcement emphasis, not a frequency ranking: in NHL play-by-play data cross-checking is only the seventh most-called penalty at the net front, and at about 1.08× its league-wide share it is not meaningfully concentrated there either — the fouls that genuinely cluster at the net front are hooking and slashing. The coaching point stands on the emphasis, not on the frequency: officials are watching for it, so it is a bad way to win the space. Body Contact and Battles owns those figures. See Defensive Zone Coverage for the box-out technique. Move fast, because nobody is coming to help you: screening is normally legal for the opposition — standing outside the crease in the goalie's line of sight without contact is not a penalty. (Rule 69.1 can void a goal where an attacker's positioning impairs the goalie's ability to move or defend, but that is a judgement on the goal afterwards, not a whistle in the moment.)

Rush and transition

The rush is where communication most often fails, because everyone is skating flat out and nobody wants to be the one who spoke wrongly.

• "Odd man" †— Said by a backchecker or the goalie. They have more attackers than we have defenders. If you hear it: the defenders stop thinking about the puck and start thinking about numbers. Full detail in Defending the Rush.

• "Two-on-one" / "Three-on-two" — The same call with the count. Note that published call lists use the short numeric forms — just "Two" or "One" — rather than the full phrase, and short is better at speed: two syllables beat four when everyone is sprinting. If you hear it as a defenceman on a two-on-one: take away the pass and give up the shot. Position yourself in the passing lane, stick flat on the ice, and do not slide until the pass has been released.

• "I've got the pass" / "Take the shooter" †— Said between a defenceman and the goalie. The defenceman is committing to the passing lane and the goalie is committing to the shooter. If you hear it as the goalie: square up to the puck carrier and play the shot as if it were a one-on-none. This split of responsibility is the standard way to defend a two-on-one and it only works if both players know which half is theirs — which is why it is said out loud rather than assumed. Note on the dagger: published goalie material documents this split being settled out loud on a two-on-one — but from the goalie's side, with the single word "shot" (see below). It is only these particular words, said by the defenceman, that are undocumented. If you want the verified call, use the goalie's.

• "Backcheck" — Said by anyone, often the bench. We have lost the puck; get back. If you hear it: turn and sprint first, look second. Puck-watching while drifting backwards is how the middle lane opens up.

• "Pick him up" / "Take the middle" †— Said by a defenceman to an arriving backchecker, or between backcheckers. There is an unmarked attacker and you are the closest. If you hear it: get on the defensive side of them — between them and your net — not behind their shoulder. Who owns which lane on a backcheck is a coaching choice, not a law. The most common assignment is that the centre owns the middle lane and the wingers own the two outside lanes; other teams use first man back takes the middle regardless of position, and others pick up man-on-man from the puck outward. Defending the Rush is the authority here and sets out all three. Find out which your team plays — these calls exist precisely to resolve the cases where players arrive in the wrong order, and under every variant the two constants are that somebody owns the middle and nobody assumes it is somebody else.

Bench and line changes

Changing on the fly is one of the most dangerous moments in a hockey game and it is coordinated almost entirely by voice.

• "Change" — Said by a player on the ice, or from the bench. The line is going off now. If you hear it on the ice: go, as a group. Never change during a defensive-zone scramble or when you are the player caught deepest.

• "I've got first player off" †— Said by a player on the bench. I am taking the seat of the first teammate who comes off, so nobody else jumps for it. If you hear it: the first opening is claimed; wait for the second.

  Do not use "last change" or "last man" for this. Both already mean something else in hockey, and using them at the bench will get you the wrong reaction at the worst moment. "Last change" is the home team's right under Rule 82.1 to put its line-up on the ice after the visitors — the main mechanical component of home-ice advantage, and the sense used throughout Game Management. It does not apply at every stoppage. Rule 82.1 grants it "except in cases following an icing, which does not result in the delay of the game", and the rule's later paragraph identifies who that exception catches — the team in violation of Rule 81, i.e. the team that iced the puck (Rule 81.4 says the same). So the home team loses last change after its own icing, and keeps it after the visitors'. (The five-and-eight-second procedure for the change itself is Rule 82.2, a separate rule.) See Faceoffs, which is the authority on this. "Last man" (or "last man back") means the deepest defender, the one player who must not leave — which is the opposite instruction to "the change is complete, go." If your team wants a call for "the change is finished", pick a word neither of those two owns.

• "I'm coming" / "I got next" — Said by a player leaving the ice, or a player on the bench claiming the next spot. If you hear it: the spot is taken; don't jump. This helps, but be clear about what the penalty actually turns on. Rule 74.1 allows changes at any time during play "provided that the player or players leaving the ice shall be within five feet (5') of his players' bench and out of the play before the change is made." So the test is distance and involvement, not seats: a bench minor comes when the replacement steps on before the retiring player is inside that five-foot limit, or when either of them plays the puck or makes contact with an opponent while both are on the ice (Rule 74.2). Two players wanting the same spot is a symptom; the offence is a player joining the play too early. And if your team scores before the whistle, Rule 74.2 disallows the goal and assesses the penalty anyway.

• "Stay" †— Said by a teammate or the bench to a player thinking about changing. Don't change now; the situation is too dangerous. If you hear it: finish the shift. A tired player in position beats a fresh player arriving late.

• "Next shift" †— Said on the bench. You are up after this one. If you hear it: get to the door, get your head into the game situation, and know who you are replacing.

A rules point that catches teams out: after your own team ices the puck, you cannot change lines (Rule 82.1) and cannot use a timeout (Rule 87.1). Whoever is on the ice stays on. That is precisely when bench communication matters most, because a tired line is about to take a defensive-zone draw.

Rule 82.1 allows exactly three exceptions, and they are narrow: you may substitute to replace a goalkeeper who had been pulled for an extra attacker, to replace an injured player, or when a penalty has been assessed that affects the on-ice strength of either team. Nothing else. "He's gassed" is not on the list.

Faceoffs

Faceoff communication happens before the puck drops, when nobody is moving and everybody can hear. That makes it the easiest communication in hockey and the most commonly skipped.

• The centre tells the four other skaters what the play is, before lining up. Not a code word shouted at the last second — an actual sentence said while the linesman is still skating in. Coaches who run set plays off the draw are unanimous that the plays only work when every player knows their assignment, and the pre-draw window is when that gets established.

• Keep the menu tiny. Two or three offensive-zone plays that everyone knows cold beats ten that nobody remembers. Most teams run something like: win it back to the point for a shot with traffic already in place; win it back to the strong-side winger for a quick chance; or, on a defensive-zone draw, win it to the boards-side defenceman for an immediate rim out.

• Name a fallback. Most draws are not won cleanly. Agree what happens on a scramble — usually "everyone takes their man and we sort it out" — so a lost draw doesn't become a lost coverage.

• Two things the wingers must be told. First, if a winger creeps inside the faceoff circle or over their hash marks before the drop, the centre gets thrown out of the dot, not the winger. Second, agree in advance which winger steps in when the centre is tossed, and what they are trying to do — normally a safe tie-up rather than anything clever. A second violation by the same team on the same draw is a bench minor, so the replacement has to be clean. See Faceoffs.

• Hand signals are common here because you can be seen but not heard across a circle, and because the opposition can hear you. A tap on the boards, a glove pointed at a spot, or a stick blade angled toward the intended target all work — provided they were agreed in the dressing room and not invented in the moment.

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Who owns which call

The organising principle is one line long: the player who can see it makes the call. Not the captain, not the defenceman, not the loudest — whoever has the information. That means an eighteen-year-old rookie shouting at a veteran is correct behaviour, and a team where that feels wrong will concede goals for it.

On top of that principle sit a few standing responsibilities, which exist because certain players reliably have certain information:

• The goaltender is the loudest voice in the defensive zone. They face the play, they are stationary, and nothing in the zone is behind them. See the next section.

• The defencemen call the breakout. The puck retriever cannot see the forecheck arriving; their partner and the weak-side defenceman can. "Up", "over", "reverse" and "wheel" are almost always called to the puck carrier by someone else, not chosen by the carrier. A common coaching drill has the weak-side defenceman read where the second forechecker is and make the call for the teammate under pressure — that is the whole shape of the responsibility in one sentence.

• The centre organises the low defensive zone. The centre's job moves with the puck, which means they are the player whose assignment is most often ambiguous, which means they are the player who most needs to announce it. When the centre goes to help in the corner, someone has to cover the high slot — under the house-default collapse that is the weak-side winger. Anyone with a clear view can call that rotation, but the centre leaving is the one who knows it is happening. See Center.

• Backcheckers call their own pickups. The players skating back are the only ones who know who they have got. Calling "I've got the middle" or "I've got seventeen" on the way back lets the defencemen commit to the puck instead of hedging.

• The bench calls changes and warns about what the on-ice players can't see — a player coming off the opposition bench, a line matchup, a shift that has gone too long.

Where two people can see it, both should call it. Redundant information costs nothing. The failure mode you are guarding against is silence, not duplication.

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The goaltender's calls

Your goalie is the best-positioned communicator on the ice and most teams waste them.

Why the position is special: they are the only player who faces the entire play at all times, the only one who is more or less stationary and therefore not making decisions under skating load, and the only one with nothing happening behind them. Every other player has a blind side. The goalie has the whole picture, permanently, for free.

Teams that ignore their goalie's voice concede more for a mechanical reason: the information the goalie has is exactly the information the defencemen lack. A defenceman retrieving a dumped puck is facing their own end boards with the forecheck coming from behind — the precise view the goalie has and they do not. If that transfer doesn't happen, the defenceman guesses, and defensive-zone guesses become turnovers in the highest-danger area on the ice.

The standard goalie vocabulary:

• "Time" — nobody is on you. The retriever can turn, look up, and make a proper play.
• "Man on" — someone is on you. Get rid of it. Some goalies use "one on you" or "two on you" to give the count.
• "Up" — the puck goes up the strong side, to the winger on the boards. In practice this is usually the defenceman telling the goalie where they want it, and the goalie executing.
• "Over" — the puck switches sides, usually behind the net. The weak-side defenceman is calling for it. The goalie can leave the net on either side to make this happen.
• "Leave it" — the goalie should stop the puck and leave it behind the net for a teammate to pick up, typically a centre wheeling through. Some teams use "set" instead; there is a good argument for "leave it" because two syllables are easier to distinguish from "up" and "over" at speed, in a noisy rink, with someone wheeling at you.
• "I've got it" — the goalie is playing the puck themselves. If you hear it: stay out of their way and get to your breakout position instead of the puck.
• "Screen" — I cannot see. Move, or move the man who is blocking me. This is the goalie's most important call and the one most often ignored.
• "Shot" — a goalie saying "shot" is not warning you that one is coming. They are telling you they have the shooter and you should take the pass — the same division of labour this document gives under "I've got the pass / Take the shooter". Published goalie material documents it as a spoken call in exactly that sense: "When the puck is at the point, or when the opposing team has a two-on-one, it can be difficult for your defense to know what you want them to do. If you'd prefer that they take away the pass or guard the open man, call for 'shot!'... If you want the shot, call for it!" That is the sense to adopt, because a warning that a shot is coming tells a skater nothing they can act on, while "I have the shooter" tells a defenceman exactly where to put their stick. If you hear it as a defenceman: stay in the passing lane and do not drift toward the puck. If your team has been using "shot" as a warning, pick a different word for the warning — the two meanings are incompatible and this is a call you have half a second to decode.

A constraint that shapes all of this: the trapezoid. Under NHL rules (since 2005-06), in the KHL, and in IIHF play (since the unified 2021-22 rulebook), the goalie may only play the puck behind the goal line inside the marked trapezoid — the lines are specified in Rule 1.8, and playing the puck outside them is a two-minute minor for delay of game under NHL Rules 27.8 and 63.2(viii) (the IIHF numbers the restricted-area rule 27.7 — its 27.8 is "Infractions – Unique to Goalkeepers"). The only exception is a goalie maintaining skate contact with the crease. So "I've got it" and "leave it" are only available where the puck actually is. Most rec, beer-league and youth associations do not use the trapezoid, and if you play under those rules your goalie becomes a genuine third puck-handler behind the net — which changes their calls and yours completely. Find out which rules you are under. Full detail in Goaltender.

Two things for the skaters. Answer your goalie — a call that gets no response gets made quieter next time, and then not at all. And tell them what you want before you need it: "leave it" works because the centre said it while still in the neutral zone, not while arriving behind the net.

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How to call well

The technique of calling matters as much as the vocabulary.

• Early beats accurate. A slightly wrong call made before the puck arrives is more useful than a perfect one made as it does. The receiver's decision is already forming; you are trying to inform it, not correct it afterwards.

• Short beats specific. One or two syllables. "Man on" survives a noisy rink; "there's a guy coming from behind your left shoulder" does not. If your call needs a comma, it is too long.

• Loud beats clever. Rinks are loud, helmets and cages muffle everything, and you are both moving. A perfect call at conversational volume did not happen. This is the single most common reason a call fails.

• Use names. "Sam, man on" gets acted on; "man on" gets four players looking around. Numbers work equally well for opponents: "I've got seventeen" is unambiguous in a way that "I've got him" never is.

• Call before the puck arrives, not as it does. The window that matters is while the puck is travelling. Once it is on their blade they are already committed.

• Keep the vocabulary consistent across the team. One word, one meaning, all season. If half the team says "over" for a cross-ice pass and half says it for "go around the boards", the word is worse than useless.

• Say the thing that is true, not the thing that is helpful. If you are not sure whether they have time, do not say "time". A false "time" call puts a teammate into contact they were not braced for, and after one of those they will stop trusting you.

• Answer calls. "Yep", "got it", a raised glove — anything. An unacknowledged switch is two players hoping.

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Non-verbal communication

Rinks are loud and sometimes a voice will not carry. Non-verbal cues are the backup, and for some things they are better than words because the opposition can hear you shout.

• Stick blade on the ice as a target. The most basic and most reliable one. A blade flat on the ice, out in front of your body, says "pass it here" and gives the passer something to aim at. A stick held in the air says the opposite — that you are not ready. See Passing and Receiving.

• Tapping the stick on the ice. The traditional "I'm open" signal, and worth a caution: all stick taps sound alike. An opponent can tap their stick and induce a blind pass straight to them, and at least one coaching resource argues against relying on the tap for exactly that reason. Use it to reinforce a call, not to replace one, and never make a blind pass on a tap alone.

• Eye contact before the pass. A tenth of a second of eye contact confirms two things at once — that they have seen you and that they are ready. It is the cheapest turnover-prevention available.

• Looking a defender off. The inverse. If you stare at your intended target, so does the defender covering them. Look deliberately at one option, then pass to another. This works because defenders read heads and eyes as a shortcut, the same way a defenceman defending a rush is taught not to — to read the attacker's chest and hips instead, precisely because the head, hands and puck are the tools of deception.

• Pointing before you pass. Point your glove or your stick at the space where you want a teammate to go, then put the puck there. Common on breakouts and on the power play, where the passer has a fraction of a second of calm and the receiver is looking up.

• Hand signals for set plays. Faceoff plays and power-play entries are often signalled rather than spoken, because the opposition is three feet away. Any signal works as long as it was agreed off the ice. Do not invent one mid-game.

• Body position as a signal. Where your feet and hips point tells a teammate what you are about to do before you do it. Opening your hips toward the middle says you are cutting inside; squaring to the boards says you are staying wide. Skilled linemates read this constantly, and it is why players who have played together a long time appear to be telepathic. They are not — they are reading hips.

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Building the habit

Almost nobody talks naturally on the ice at first. The obstacle is not tactical, it is social: most players are simply too self-conscious to shout. Newer players in particular are worried about being wrong, about being loud, about being the one person making noise. That is normal, it is universal, and it goes away in about three sessions of deliberate practice.

How to practise it:

• Talk in every drill, including the ones where it feels stupid. A three-player passing drill with nobody in the way is exactly where the habit gets built, because you can talk without also thinking. Coaches who accept silence in drills get silence in games. Treat a missing call the same way you would treat a missed backcheck.
• Start with the two calls that matter most. Just "man on" and "time". Get those automatic before adding anything.
• Make one player responsible for volume each drill. Rotating the job means the quiet players get forced through the awkward stage rather than hiding behind the loud ones.
• Talk on the bench too. Players who are engaged verbally on the bench are engaged verbally on the ice. It is the same muscle.
• Note the calls that worked, out loud, afterwards. "That 'over' saved us a turnover" does more for a team's willingness to talk than any amount of general encouragement.

How a team agrees a vocabulary:

• Do it in the dressing room at the start of the season, not on the ice in game three. Twenty minutes with a whiteboard is enough.
• Write down one word per meaning. The commonest source of confusion is two words for one thing, or worse, one word for two things — "behind you" meaning both an opponent and a loose puck is the classic.
• Keep the list short enough to remember. Ten to fifteen calls covers almost everything. Anything longer will not survive a real game.
• Include the goalie in the conversation. Their calls are the ones the defencemen have to act on instantly, and they are the ones most often left out of the discussion.
• Revisit it once, about a month in. You will find two calls nobody uses and one situation nobody has a word for.

See Team Play and Culture for the wider point, and Practice and Development for building habits generally.

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Common Mistakes

• Total silence in the defensive zone. The failure this document exists to fix. The defensive zone is where the information gap between the puck carrier and everyone else is widest, and it is where a lost puck becomes a goal. (Nobody publishes a ranking of amateur mistakes, so treat "most common" claims here — including the next few — as coaching observation, not measurement.)
• Two players calling for the same puck, both arriving, and neither taking it. The fix is a standing rule about who has priority — usually the player facing up-ice, or the player who called first.
• Calling too late to be useful. "Man on" shouted as the hit lands is not communication, it is commentary.
• Nobody calling the switch. Two opponents cross, two defenders both track the same one, and the other walks in alone.
• Assuming a teammate saw what you saw. They did not. You are looking at different halves of the rink; that is the entire reason the call has value.
• The "I thought you had him" goal. Both defenders drawn to the puck, the goalmouth empty, a tap-in. It is a communication failure rather than an effort failure — both players were working hard, at the same job — and it is the reason the back-door call exists.
• A false "time" call. Sending a teammate into contact they were not braced for. One of these and they will stop listening to you for the rest of the season.
• Making a call and not being available to back it up. If you shout "here", be there.
• Using a private vocabulary. Words your team has not agreed are noise.
• Talking to the referee instead of to your teammates. Whatever you say to the official does not change the call and does take your attention off the play.

Key Takeaways

1. The puck carrier is the least informed player on the ice. Everyone else can see their blind side. A call transfers information that already exists and costs nothing.
2. "Man on" and "time" are the two highest-value words in hockey. One prevents a turnover; the other prevents a panic. Both are usually available and usually unsaid.
3. The player who can see it makes the call — not the captain, not the most senior player. Whoever has the information.
4. Your goalie is your best communicator. They face the whole play, they are stationary, and nothing is behind them. Their view is exactly the view your defencemen lack.
5. Early beats accurate, short beats specific, loud beats clever. A perfect call at conversational volume did not happen.
6. Use names and numbers. "Sam, man on" gets acted on. "Man on" gets four heads turning.
7. Agree the vocabulary as a team and never change it. The specific words barely matter; a receiver who has to translate has already lost the half-second the call was worth.
8. Answer every call. An unacknowledged switch is two players hoping, and hoping is how the back door scores.
9. Non-verbal cues back up words, they don't replace them. A stick blade on the ice is a target; a stick tap is anyone's, including your opponent's.
10. The loudest team usually looks like the more skilled team. It is the cheapest improvement available to any team — no fitness, no skill work, no extra ice.

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A note on which calls are documented. Calls marked † above are in common spoken use, but no source listed below documents them as verbal calls. They are: turn, eat it, with you, outlet, net front, sag / collapse, odd man, I'm high, my man / I've got him, pick him up / take the middle, I've got the pass / take the shooter, I've got first player off, stay, and next shift.

Two qualifications on that list. First, outlet, net front, sag, collapse and odd man are all well documented as standard hockey terms — they appear throughout the coaching literature and elsewhere in this guide as names for positions, shapes and situations. What is unverified is only their use as something a player shouts. Second, these entries are corroborated in the sources and carry no dagger: stretch, over and here (Sweden coach Sam Hallam's list of what his players shout, quoted by NHL.com — he also lists "Open!", which this document does not carry as a separate call); two-on-one / three-on-two (ReasonY gives the short numeric forms "Two" and "One", noted inline); wheel, reverse, time, man on and middle (the BVHS goalie manual's "phrases and what they mean" list, which also documents "bank" — "half wall" is not on that list; it appears in a separate list of "key communication phrases goaltenders can use" in the same manual's Playing The Puck section, alongside "leaving it", "reverse", "wheel" and "bank"); man on, time, screen, ice it, dump, leave it (Sportmentary); up, over and leave it (Kelvin Cech's goalie breakout calls, which is also the source for the two-syllable argument); rim, clear, back, back door, chip, deep / dump, far side, feet / under, one on / two on, all alone and screen (the Chicks with Sticks call list); and the goalie's shot, which Sportmentary documents word for word, in the same sense this document gives it.

For the rest, the concepts are standard and sourced elsewhere in this guide; it is only the specific wording that is unverified — which is the main point of this document anyway: the words are conventions, and yours may differ.

Sources — retrieved 27 July 2026

Call vocabulary: Chicks with Sticks Hockey – Hockey Vocabulary (On-Ice Communications) — the most complete published call list available, organised by who says each call · Coach Chic – Voice of the Bench: Communicating Under Pressure on the Ice · Athlenow – How to Improve Team Communication on the Ice · Fusion Hockey – On-Ice Communication — source for the caution against relying on stick taps

Goaltender calls: The Coaches Site – Goalie Breakout Calls (Kelvin Cech) — source for "up", "over" and "leave it", and the two-syllable argument · ReasonY – Goalie/Defense Communication (Michal Ondrasek) — note this is a ball-hockey coaching post, not ice hockey; the calls quoted from it transfer · Ice Hockey Systems – Breakout Communication Drill — weak-side defenceman reads the second forechecker and makes the call · Sportmentary – Ice Hockey Goalie: Communication Tips — source for the goalie's "shot" call on a two-on-one, and for "man on", "time" / "space", "watch left", "screen" / "screen slot", "backdoor" / "high slot", "dump" / "ice it", "you've got time" / "leave it", "play it" and "send it" as spoken calls · BVHS Goalie Coaches Tactics and Skill Development Resource Guide, updated May 2026 (PDF) — its "phrases and what they mean" list documents "wheel", "reverse", "time", "man on", "middle" and "bank" as spoken calls

Building the habit: USA Hockey ADM – Teaching Effective Communication at 12U · Hockey's Arsenal – Developing an Ice Hockey Team's Communication · Swift Hockey – The Art of Effective Communication on the Ice · Minnesota Hockey – 4 Tips for In-Game Communication

Faceoff and line-change communication: Ice Hockey Systems – 10 Offensive Zone Faceoff Plays · Hockey's Arsenal – A Deep Dive Into Hockey Line Changes

Rules: NHL Official Rules 2025-2026 (PDF) (Rule 59.2 Cross-checking, Rule 63.2(iii) Delaying the Game — puck out of play from the defending zone, Rule 69.1 Interference on the Goalkeeper, Rules 74.1 / 74.2 Too Many Men on the Ice, Rule 76 Face-offs, Rule 81 Icing, Rule 82.1 Line Change, Rule 83 Off-side, Rule 87.1 Time-outs, Rule 1.8 Goalkeeper's Restricted Area markings, Rules 27.8 / 63.2(viii) restricted-area penalty) · USA Hockey Official Playing Rules 2025-29 (PDF) — Rule 624(b)(1), the classification restriction on the shorthanded icing exemption, and Rule 636(f), which attaches no icing condition to its 60-second time-out · IIHF Official Rule Book 2025/26 — Rules 81.4 and 87.1, which impose the post-icing line-change and time-out bans in the NHL's own words · IIHF – New Rule Book for global game

Regional variation: NHL.com – 4 Nations Face-Off gives European players chance to speak native languages — source for Gustav Nyquist on differing coaching terminology, and for Sweden coach Sam Hallam's list of the words his players actually shout on the ice ("Over! Over!" "Here! Here!" "Open! Open!" "Stretch!"), which is also the citation for "stretch" as a documented spoken call. No source gives a call-by-call North American/European comparison, so that section is deliberately kept general — and note that the one piece of direct evidence available points to English being the shouted language at that level regardless of nationality.